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Today in 1943, hundreds of white Naval soldiers drove down to the historic Mexican-American neighborhood of East Los Angeles to attack Chicano pachucos. During WWII, Chicanos wore flamboyant and fabric heavy outfits that, in addition to blatant racism, created a convenient excuse to target young Mexicans. The day of the riots soldiers stripped pachucos in zoot suits naked, burning their clothes and attacking them with clubs.

On Thursday the “democratic socialist” addressed 6,000 people in Chico, and thousands more turned out to see him speak in Palo Alto on Wednesday.

Mr Sanders theoretically needs two-thirds of the vote to stay in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Ms Clinton’s win in the US Virgin Islands on Saturday put her on 2,323 delegates to Sanders’s 1,547, but that could change if unelected “superdelegates” opt to switch their pledges after the California primary.

The Black Lives Matter movement continues to shake up the race to the White House. On Thursday, activists in Philadelphia disrupted a speech by former President Bill Clinton, who was campaigning on behalf of Hillary Clinton. The activists called out the Clintons for their support for the 1994 crime bill, which led to a massive expansion of incarceration in the United States, and Hillary Clinton’s 1996 comments that some youth were “superpredators.”

In response, Bill Clinton defended Hillary Clinton’s use of the term “superpredators” and accused the activists of defending criminals. We speak to Melina Abdullah, an organizer with Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles. “[Bill Clinton] is very good at … distracting us from how systems create these conditions,” says Abdullah. “They act as if the young folks who wind up committing crimes … as if they weren’t human beings. This term ‘superpredator’ dehumanizes our children.”

Activist Rosa Clemente was also tried but was acquitted. Supporters say the prosecution is part of a larger effort by the LAPD and City Attorney’s Office targeting Black Lives Matter activists in Los Angeles. Melina Abdullah, an organizer with Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, describes how many protesters facing charges were under surveillance and how some had letters sent to their homes from the LAPD and the U.S. Justice Department. Abdullah is professor and chair of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. We also speak with Nana Gyamfi, a criminal defense and human rights attorney who represents Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles.

On the surface, it may be easy to dismiss the locals of Porter Ranch, California, who are complaining of headaches, nose-bleeds and nausea due to the massive methane leak. But these seemingly modest ailments have turned into nightmares for some families. Jim Frantz, of the Frantz Law Group representing more than 1,000 residents, sits with RT’s Manila Chan to discuss how his clients are dealing with the health hazard.

This Sunday, state regulators ordered the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) to permanently close the natural gas well responsible for the largest methane leak in US history. The leak began on October 23, 2015, and has continued unabated until now, releasing the equivalent of 2.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and forcing thousands of local families to relocate. The leak is not expected to be stopped until the end of March.

The leak at the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon underground storage facility was caused by the failure of antiquated infrastructure and completely inadequate maintenance and inspection. The leak began last October with a rupture in a well casing, which was drilled in 1959, causing methane to seep up through the soil into the neighboring Porter Ranch, a suburb of Los Angeles. Roughly 4,500 families so far have evacuated the area to avoid the leak.

An aerial survey of the area carried out by UC Davis scientist Stephen Conley showed methane levels of 50 parts per million in November. Conley told the Los Angeles Times “this is probably 20 times bigger than anything else we’ve measured.”

Natural gas which is primarily composed of methane is not considered toxic or dangerous when it is able to dissipate, but some of the chemicals associated with it are. Natural gas is mixed with an odorant to make it smell like rotten eggs to warn people of leaks in their homes. The current large-scale leak is causing some residents to suffer difficulty breathing, dizziness, headaches, nosebleeds and vomiting.

Natural gas, particularly that produced by hydraulic fracturing, can also contain benzene, a toxic carcinogen.

A leak of this size will inevitably have an impact on global warming. Methane is roughly 84 times more effective at trapping energy over a period of 20 years than is carbon dioxide. After 100 years, methane remains 25 times more potent. At its high point in December, the leak rate peaked at 58,000 kg per hour, or the emissions equivalent of about 900 cars driving for a year, every hour.

SoCalGas has played a criminal role in their failure to maintain their facilities and in their delays in dealing with the leak. In 2014, SoCalGas submitted a request to state regulators to raise their rates, ostensibly to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells. The report listed 26 of their wells as “high risk” entities that should be abandoned. It is unclear whether the Aliso Canyon well that broke was one of those.

It is clear is that SoCalGas knew of significant risks in their equipment and, rather than fix them, tried to use them to blackmail workers into paying higher rates. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy which made $1.2 billion in profit in 2014. The amount the company sought in increased rates over the next six years was $180 million, about 2.5 percent of their expected yearly profits.

Despite knowing that their well lacked many modern safety features, like a shutoff valve at the base, SoCalGas continued to cut corners and use the injection well in a risky manner. Most wells consist of a metal casing surrounding a narrower metal tube, and SoCalGas was using the casing itself to inject natural gas, not just the internal tube, raising the risk of a leak.

After the leak was initially discovered on October 23, SoCalGas denied its existence to the public until five days later and did not start drilling a relief well until December 4, six weeks after the leak began. Instead they made six attempts in November to block the well with mud and brine which failed and may have actually increased the leak rate. The first relief well is expected to be finished by February 24, with a second well planned, eventually allowing the leaking well to be capped by the end of March.

This is not the first disaster coming from California’s natural gas infrastructure. In 2010 pipes owned by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) exploded in San Bruno, killing eight people, injuring 60 and destroying or damaging 161 homes. For years before the 2010 disaster, PG&E demanded and received rate hikes in 2007 and 2009 to pay for maintenance, yet long stretches of antiquated pipes in residential areas were left untouched, leading to the explosion.

More recently, PG&E received $2.37 billion in rate hikes spread out over three years from state regulators last August to pay for “maintenance.” PG&E’s profit in 2014 was nearly $2 billion dollars, and there is no reason to believe that this new profit will be used for maintenance any more than their current profit is.

The government response to these companies’ reckless threats and negligence has been complete acquiescence. Rate hikes are approved for companies already making large profits, infrastructure is left uninspected, and when it does collapse, government fines are barely even a slap on the wrist. Under current laws, SoCalGas faces a maximum fine of $25,000 for the Aliso Canyon leak.

On January 6, 2016 Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Porter Ranch, California because of the gas leak, which has led to thousands of residents leaving their homes.[2] The emergency order increased leak containment efforts and demanded that the well’s owner pay for emissions-reducing projects to offset the disaster. On January 11, 2016, California Senators spearheaded by Sen. Fran Pavley announced a legislative package in response to the leak that, if passed, would enact an emergency moratorium on all operations at the storage facility as well as all operations in the Aliso Canyon Oil Field.[3]

… LA Weekly reported the well had not been inspected since 1976. LA Weekly interviewed Rodger Schwecke, a SoCalGas executive who claimed the valve from the leaking well was removed in 1979. The paper reported that valve was not required by state regulations. The safety valve would have been required at a “critical” well, one within 100 feet of a road or a park, or within 300 feet of a home. But, if in place, it could have been used to stop the leak.[6]

The houses and car-lined streets are being pummeled with gusts of natural gas and other contaminants contained within the plume. Moving images at the 10-second mark of the video reveal just how close some of the Porter Ranch homes are to the Aliso Canyon blowout. Using infrared technology for natural gas detection, the magenta color designates traces of natural gas. You can see, at the top of the screen, gas fumes violently spewing from the well. You’ll notice that the plume shooting from the ground, the source of the breach, is the darkest shade, signifying its high concentration of natural gas. The fumes wafting from the source have completely enveloped the area, showing purple hills in infrared where there is, in fact, an abundance of natural gas collecting in the atmosphere.

Are Porter Ranch children safe? The images beginning at 1:14 reveal an empty playground with abandoned swings swaying to and fro with the inertia of methane-tainted wind gusts. The gas clouds roving overhead in the background offset by the Santa Susana Mountain Range illustrate the vast area that the gas plume now covers.

Homes and hills are lined with thick noxious gases that have sent many Porter Ranch residents fleeing in droves. If you, too, are waiting on a resolution or restitution from the SoCalGas blowout, visit http://porterranchlawsuit.com/ today.

Natural gas leaking from old and poorly maintained pipes in the United States is putting trillions of cubic feet of methane, a long-term greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere every year while utility companies profit on it. Leaks in some pipes have existed for decades, with the knowledge of gas distribution companies. Even in parts of the country that are not experiencing mass utility shutoffs, injuries and deaths occur regularly: here.

“In the whole text of the email there is a pornographic reference to a body part that … this person claims to be a devout Muslim, I don’t think that that’s consistent. There is certainly nothing in the text of the email that shows that the person who wrote it has any particular understanding of Islam,” he said. “The second issue is … [the author] claims that he’s got 32 accomplices–that’s way beyond what ISIS or even al-Qaida have been able to put together in any western city.”

The Newsday article continues:

The Los Angeles schools — the second-largest district in the nation after New York City’s — announced a systemwide closure Tuesday after receiving what was termed “a credible threat.”

“It is not credible,” de Blasio said. He added: “Our school system remains fully open.”

De Blasio said NYPD intelligence analysts scrutinized the email: “This was a very generic piece of writing,” he said, and the threatened violence “is not plausible.”

“It’s very important not to overreact in situations like this,” de Blasio said.

Bratton said the email appears to have come from overseas and was received by a superintendent of the city schools.

Authorities in Los Angeles think the email was sent from an IP address in Germany.

The Los Angeles City school district, the second-largest public school system in the United States, shut down over 1,000 schools early Tuesday morning after school board members received an email threatening an attack on multiple school locations with assault rifles and bombs in backpacks. By the afternoon, the email had been determined to be a hoax. Some 643,000 students were told at the last minute not to show up at school, undoubtedly forcing many thousands of parents to miss work and disrupting the lives of millions in the city: here.

For anything to do with drugs, you will get the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Well … you will get it if you are a poor Pakistani … … I am not so sure about royal family scions. As in Saudi Arabia, as in quite some other countries, there is one law … etc.

and threatening to kill women who refused his advances — as well as sexually assaulting a maid, Daily Mail reported.

Prince Majed bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is now facing a series of allegations in a civil case brought by three female staff members of his Los Angeles mansion.

The staff has accused him of repeatedly making unwanted sexual advances while being drunk and high at his $37 million mansion in Beverly Hills and even forcing them to watch a male aide pleasure him, according to court documents.

The staff claims that the royal threatened to kill one of the women when she refused to ‘party’ with him and jumped on top of another and began rubbing himself against her in a “sexual and aggressive manner”.

He also attempted to urinate on the trio while screaming, “I want to pee pee”. When asked to stop, Al Saud allegedly then yelled, “I am a prince and I do what I want. You are nobody!” Another female staff member has alleged that she was made to watch while a different male aide bent over and broke wind in Al Saud’s face, apparently at his request.

These disclosures about the prince were made after felony charges were dropped against him by Los Angeles District Attorney due to lack of evidence. The case has now been passed to LA city attorney Mike Feur who will decide whether to pursue misdemeanour charges – which could lead to a year in jail and a $3,000 fine should he be convicted.

The women who had been employed by the prince to look after his Wallingford Drive mansion say that they still have not been paid and are hoping to recover their lost earnings. They allege that the 29-year-old prince threw a party on September 21 and arranged for “multiple escorts” to attend. As the evening progressed, he became “increasingly intoxicated” and was seen engaging in “illicit drug abuse”.

The next evening he threw another party where he “continued to engage in heavy drinking, cocaine use and more escorts came to the residence”.

The day after that, he attempted to urinate on the three women but was dragged away by an assistant before he could so. However, he returned ten minutes later and the incident in which he rubbed himself against one of the women occurred. When she attempted to reason with him, saying, “I’m a woman” he screamed, “You’re not a woman, you are a nobody! I’m a prince and I will do what I want and nobody will do anything to me!”

The terrified women, who had often witnessed the prince physically abuse the male staff, hid on a balcony but were told by an aide to get back to work and that they were not supposed to have any breaks. One of them was then told to pour a drink for the prince and was subjected to a violent assault that left her badly bruised. When they attempted to leave, they found that they had been locked in by the aides. It was then that the royal threatened to kill the third woman, telling her, “You are going to go upstairs. I will be there in two minutes and you’ll do whatever I want. If not, then I’ll kill you.” Al Saud then, it is alleged, became even more agitated and began to “scream and make animal like sounds.”

The women managed to escape the house but had to return the next day to collect their personal possessions. The aides assured them that the prince would not bother them again but if they left then they would have to forfeit their wages. They were locked in again and when they next encountered the prince, he was masturbated by another man. Al Saud then ordered them to watch. One of the woman was also asked to “lick my whole body” by Al Saud in exchange for payment and says he became aggressive when she refused.

Finally, police was called when the prince’s girlfriend, who he had earlier accused of having sex with another man in the bathroom of a club the previous evening, and the original complainant were found covered in blood, crying and shaking. Al Saud was then arrested and led away by the LAPD, allegedly screaming, “No news!” at onlookers.

Al Saud has not been seen at his rented $37 million Beverly Glen mansion since his arrest late last month and is thought by neighbours to have fled the country.

Three US women claim sexual assault by Saudi prince in Beverly Hills mansion. The women who were hired as housekeepers in Majed Abdulaziz Al Saud’s home say the prince made sexual advances and harassed them and other staff: here.